I read John Grisham’s “The King of Torts” a couple of weeks ago. It’s the first Grisham book that I’ve read for a while; The Partner being the last one.
Well, I really enjoyed it in an odd kind of way… the story just rolls along and seems to twist and turn, not plot twists, but more what the story is about. There are a number of places where I felt that the author has lost the plot and was breaking rules of coherent and acceptable writing practices; he seems to give you too much information up front. However, this seems not important to the actual story… which is ultimately a moral about greed.

I went to the Winter Solstice Celebrations at Stonehenge this morning. It isn’t as widely visited as the Summer Solstice, I guess the cold puts most people off, so the reduced numbers make for a more personal moment. There is very little organisation compared to the Summer Solstice, no car parking facilities, no food, etc, but then you only get about a thousand people at the most compared to the twenty five thousand in the summer.

The fog was thick, as it has been for the past few days, so I didn’t actually see the sun until about 9:30am from the motorway on my way to work, but the atmosphere was fantastic and the fog added to the feeling of eerieness that one gets from the stones.

   

Unlike the summer solstice, the winter solstice has a more defined ceremony for the people who welcome the sun back. I found myself caught between two thoughts for the people who take it seriously; One. You are grown men, get a grip of yourself… and Two. We should all let these people get on with it without our intrusion.

There is a large intrusion of photographers and camera men trying to get the close shot of anyone who remotely look like they take the process seriously. I found myself thinking that they should just be left alone with a small exclusion zone around them. Imagine all these cameras at the front of a church during communion or something.

I also found that you get people dressed up a tad silly to be taken seriously, and that these people detract from what everyone else is doing. A bloke dressed as Merlin springs to mind. Dressed in new modern costime shop atire, complete with jeans and white trainers! Unfortunatley, it is people like him that get the attention of the press, and therefore show a rather silly side of the whole process.

See Also: Summer Solstice 2006 | Summer Solstice 2005 | The Longest Day | Fergus’ Solstice Fotothing

I finished reading Sideways a few weeks ago, yes I know it’s taken me some time to mention, but there you go. It’s the third in the Trilogy of film books… ie: I read 3 books on the bounce that were made into films all of which I had seen the film first. The book is very good. The story is that of 2 friends who go on a stag week. The groom is going to have his final fling and his best man, Miles, is there for the wine tour. The story has a very interesting interplay between the characters and you seem to get into their mindset pretty well. However, one of the real interesting thing is the detail for the Wine. Miles is a real Wine snob and you get a lot of detail about wine and drinking wine. Although this may sound a little boring, which indeed sometimes it does feel while reading, it actually does two things perfectly… a) gets you into Miles’ character, and b) makes you want to drink the wines they are talking about!

See Also: The Green Mile | Big Fish

I saw a very strange thing this morning while driving from Fordingbridge to work. As I travelled along Roger Penny Way ( B3078 ) a man dressed as either a deer or a horse was riding a Bicycle in the opposite direction waving at the traffic as he went. Attached to his cycle was a flag with “Please Slow Down” written on it…

When I was six I lived in Portsmouth on a naval housing estate on Matapan Road in Hilsea. While I was there I was attacked by someone intent on ending my life… that happened almost 30 years ago. I’ve told a few people and it comes up in conversation every now and then. Over the last 30 years I have not thought about it that much in the scheme of things. I started at IBM in July where the place is practically in view from where I sit and barely a day goes by without me thinking about it… strange isn’t it?

I managed to write a very story story about it called “Black Velcro Shoe” some years ago, which was a odd experience to say the least. I had no problem writing it but I couldn’t read it out in my creative writing class.

See Also: Black Velcro Shoe, A map of events using Local Live